New Nonprofit Helps Ensure Oklahoma Search & Rescue Crews Can Respond To Disasters

A new nonprofit is helping make sure Urban Search and Rescue crews can respond to natural disasters.

The new Foundation President said the money raised ensures Task Force crews can do something good for communities in Oklahoma and across the country. Whether it is hurricanes, tornadoes, ice storms, or collapsed structures - Urban Search and Rescue Teams respond.

"It is really satisfying just to help people, I love my job," said Terry Sivadon with the Urban Search and Rescue Foundation. 

They train for every possible emergency scenario so that when tragedy strikes, they can help as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, and keep their crews safe.

"We do initially 240 hours of training just to get started. Then we do training every month just to keep it up," said Sivadon, "I have got 115 people on my team. Over the last couple of years, we have also added our helicopter search and rescue team. We also added five boats."

Sivadon knows the mission of the Urban Search and Rescue team well - he's been a part of it since it began in 2005. His experience with the crews has put him in the perfect position to become President of the new nonprofit Urban Search and Rescue Foundation.

The goal is to use this foundation money to help crews buy more gear that they feel would help them help the most people. The first part of the budget is going towards medical bills for the 12 K9s.

"As dog handlers, we are responsible for everything that has to do with the dog. Sometimes they help us out with the vet bills and things like that, but for the most part we take care of everything," said Tulsa Fire K9 Coordinator, Jeff Leon. 

They hope eventually to have money available, so if anyone on the team has ideas for gear that could help the team do their jobs more effectively, they can get it. 

"We don't make a lot of money, we do this for the job, and we do the K9 handling because we love dogs, and we love to help people. It is nice having that in the back of your mind that if something happens, we can call them, and they can help us out," said Leon. 

If you would like to help support the Urban Search and Rescue Foundation, be sure and like them on Facebook. They said all updates on the future website and donation links will be posted there.